This is an interesting song simply because of what it is about. Written by the band’s lead singer, Dolores O’Riordan, Zombie is a protest song that was released in 1994. It was written during the Cranberries’ English Tour in 1993 by O’Riordan in memory of two boys, Jonathan Ball and Tim Parry, who died in an IRA bombing in Warrington. The Warrington bombings were two attacks that took place in early 1993 in Warrington, England. The first was on the 26th of February at a gas storage facility, which caused a lot of structural damage, but no injuries. While fleeing the scene, however, the bombers shot and injured an officer. Two of them were caught following a high-speed car chase. The second attack was on the 20th of March. Two small bombs were placed in trash cans outside of shops and businesses on Bridge Street. Although a warning was sent, the area was not evacuated in time, resulting in two children being killed and dozens of people injured.

These attacks were carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, or as most people know them, the IRA. The IRA had been carrying out attacks on infrastructure and commercial areas in Northern Ireland and England. Their goal was to harm the economy and cause disruption, which would hopefully put pressure on the British Government to withdraw from Northern Ireland. The bombing on March 20 resulted in massive coverage in the media and cause widespread anger and protests against the IRA in Dublin.

I happen to love Dolores O’Riordan’s voice though, whatever the song is about. The video is a bit strange, mostly because I’m not sure why she’s all gold in parts of it and the other parts are black and white “footage” style pieces. I feel like they should’ve chosen one direction to go or the other.

What did you think of the song and the video? How did you enjoy my posts for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge? As always, I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts. 🙂

I love acoustic pieces. This song is just beautiful. In the music video you see Ronnie Winter, the writer of the song, and the band moving around and getting ready for a show. Ronnie sings in a closet with one light bulb, then plays and sings while the band is preparing for the concert. The rock portion of the song hits when the band steps on a stage alight with flashing light effects and chandeliers. The video was directed by Shane Drake.

By now you may or may not have figured out that I’m a fan of rock ballads. 🙂 I heard this song after a friend of mine mentioned that he liked it and it just stuck with me. There’s not a whole lot to say about it. It’s clearly about a man in love, and he’s imploring his lover to believe that he’s the one and to not walk away from that.

You can find the lyrics here and more about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge here. One day left guys! Any predictions for the letter Z?

Who doesn’t love Rush? Anyone who raised their hand should probably leave now. This is sort of the ultimate Rush song. At 11 minutes long, it’s time consuming, but the five minute instrumental opener is perfection. The song then transitions to a narrative written by Neil Peart, inspired by the poem “Kubla Khan,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In the lyrics (found here), the narrator describes the search for something called “Xanadu.” While it’s never actually explained what “Xanadu” is, the poem “Kubla Khan” implies that it is a mythical place based on the summer capital of the Mongolian Empire that will grant him immortality. When the narrator finds Xanadu and attains mortality, a thousand years pass and he is left “waiting for the world to end,” and actually bitter about the success of his quest.

If you’re into instruments, this is a great song to feed that. Each member was required to use an array of instruments to effect the performance. The was a double-necked Gibson electric guitar (one twelve-strong, the other six-string) as well as synthesizer pedals used by Alex Lifeson, a double-necked Rickenbacker 4080/12 guitar (bass and twelve-string guitar) as well as extensive synthesizer arrangements while singing by Geddy Lee, and Peart took on various percussion instruments including temple blocks, tubular bells, bell tree, glockenspiel, and wind chimes, in addition to his drum kit work. More recent cuts of the song have been altered to simplify the arrangement, to which I can only say this, not everyone can be Rush in 1977….not even Rush.

What did you all think of this song? Was 11 minutes too long for you or did the instrumental portion tie it all together for you?

Don’t forget to check out more about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge here.

Okay okay, I know that Darius Rucker did a version of this song and it was a big hit blah blah blah. I don’t care about Darius Rucker. For me, this is the original version of this song, and it’s the best, hands down. I’m biased because this is mine and Batdad’s song. One of them at least. I have a deep fondness for bluegrass, and I love the twang of this song. Plus, you can hook me on almost any song with the use of cello or fiddle (violin or viola). Batdad told me once upon a yesteryear, long ago when we dated once before, that this song made him think of me, and it just stuck.

The song is sung from a man’s point of view as he hitchhikes south along the eastern coast of the US, from New England down through Roanoke (Virginia), hoping to get to Raleigh (North Carolina) where his lover is. As he’s walking South of Roanoke, he catches a ride with a trucker traveling from Philly westward to the Cumberland Gap and Johnson City, Tennessee. Though that’s not the right direction, and the writer of the song, Ketch Secor, admits that his geography was a bit off when he wrote the lyrics, I think that it adds to the story of trying to get to his “baby” and having a hard time of it.

Here are the lyrics to the song and here is more information about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Only a few days left! What have you guys thought about the music overall? Is there anything you wish I would have included?

My first “real” concert that I attended was Slipknot. This song (I’ll count them as one) has always hit me in the chest. It’s one of those songs that makes you feel…things. Pretty vague huh? Overwhelming emotion of some sort. The deep baritone of Corey Taylor’s voice is amazing, and the acoustic ballad sound of Part Two….ugh. The lyrics speak to the dark times I’ve fumbled through in my life, and I’m guilty of having listened to this song on repeat more than once.

Enough about my personal attachment to the song.

Corey Taylor says of the songs, “The differences (between the two tracks) are subtle — ‘Vermilion Pt. 1’ is about the enrapturing, the buildup, the anticipation and the neurosis. ‘Part 2’ is the aftermath, the pieces that have to be picked up later, and maybe the guilt of having lived through it” There are two music videos, one for each part of the song, and they are integral to the story of the song. Pt. 1, directed by Tony Petrossian and percussionist Shawn Crahan, shows a girl living a tortured life in the city. She moves slowly around the streets in contortions and twists as people move by in a blur, ignoring her pain. She finally gets noticed when she puts on a Maggot Mask (a specially designed mask for fans of the band) which makes the members of the band appear and dance with her. Upon appearing to the girl, the band members put on white masks which enable their true faces to be seen for a moment. A portion of the video is spent with the girl watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly then escape her. She chases after it and it seems that her inability to catch it triggers a bit of a meltdown. She tries to connect with people who are all moving faster that she is and towards the end of the video you see her in clear anguish pulling chunks of her hair out in different locations of the city before the butterfly comes back to her and the sun comes up.

Pt. 2 was directed by Marc Klasfeld and shows the same girl, but this time she is sleeping peacefully in a field. The wind begins to pick up and lifts her up, tossing her around and swaying her back and forth. Eventually, you realize that the girl is dead and not actually sleeping at all, but overall the video is much more peaceful than the first. Maybe that’s a nod to finding peace after life?

This song is special to me and easily recognizable. The intro is well-known and most people can sing at the least the first few lines. While I’ve always been a fan of the song, and of RHCP, this song is special to me because of a friend. When I was 19 I lived in Las Vegas for a year. The ‘burbs outside Vegas, but close enough. In the time that I lived there, I made one friend that I always felt had my back. My “homie” Van. Homie was his word, not mine. In the chaos that was my life that year, Van picked me up and held me together numerous times, whether he knew it or not. This song was one that he would always crank up when we were riding around, claiming it was his “jam.” He always substituted the word “angels” in the lyrics, for “City of Vegas.” I’ve since lost touch with Van, but this song never fails to make me think of him.

Anthony Kiedis, vocalist for RHCP, wrote the lyrics for this song as a poem at first, expressing his feelings of loneliness as well as reflecting on his use of narcotics and their impact on his life. He didn’t feel as though the song would fit with the current repertoire of the band and did not show it to them until producer Rick Rubin found it in a notebook of his poems and implored him to do so. The band was receptive to the song and pretty much immediately picked up instruments and started writing music to it.

Once I chose this song for the letter T, I was very eager to write the relating post. This song is a bit heavy, though beautiful. A mid-tempo song with soul, the details of the lyrics outline Hozier’s frustration with the Catholic Church’s stance on homosexuality. Lyrically, the song is a metaphor, with the protagonist comparing his lover to religion and Hozier said in an interview with Rolling Stone, “Growing up, I always saw the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. The history speaks for itself and I grew up incredibly frustrated and angry. I just put that into my words.” In another interview with New York Magazine he stated, “Sexuality, and sexual orientation – regardless of orientation – is just natural. An act of sex is one of the most human things. But an organization like the church, say, through its doctrine, would undermine humanity by successfully teaching shame about sexual orientation – that it is sinful, or that it offends God. The song is about asserting yourself and reclaiming your humanity through an act of love.”

The song’s music video has contributed to its popularity, following the relationship between two men in a same-sex relationship and the subsequent violent homophobic backlash. Hozier stated, “The song was always about humanity at its most natural, and how that is undermined ceaselessly by religious organizations and those who would have us believe they act in its interests. What has been seen growing in Russia is no less than nightmarish, I proposed bringing these themes into the story and Brendan (the videos director) liked the idea.”

I’m all for LGBT rights and though this video was hard to stomach at times, I know that these things are actually happening in parts of the world. This is an important issue to address because everyone should have the freedom to love without persecution.

This second video is a version directed by David LaChapelle featuring Ukrainian ballet star Sergei Polunin, the “Bad Boy of Ballet.” It is beautiful and the kind of visual that you can feel in your soul. He is extremely talented. Considering he mainly works in Russia at this time, it’s a bold statement for him to make, whether intentional or not.

What do you guys think about the videos and the meaning behind them?

You can find out more about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge here, and you can find full lyrics to the song here.